This paper explores a novel analysis of adjectives in the comparative and the positive based on the notion of a trope, rather than the notion of a degree. Tropes are particularized properties, concrete manifestations of properties in individuals. The point of departure is that a sentence like ‘John is happier than Mary’ is intuitively equivalent to ‘John’s happiness exceeds Mary’s happiness’, a sentence that expresses a simple comparison between two tropes, John’s happiness and Mary’s happiness. The analysis received particular support (...) from various parallels between adjectival constructions and corresponding adjective nominalizations which make reference to tropes. (shrink)

A recent defence of analyzing names as predicates that relies on a calling relation to explain their meanings,an account developed by Fara, is claimed to escape the problems afflicting standard meta-linguistic analyses. For Fara, this is because the calling relation itself is not essentially meta-linguistic; there are attributive uses of the calling relation as well. Distinguishing between meta-linguistic and attributive notions of calling is supposed to disperse with the common objection to calling accounts, specifically, Kripke's objection that these kinds of (...) accounts cannot be informative. I argue that while the account may be informative in some superficial sense, it does not in fact increase our understanding of acts of naming. Indeed, I offer an objection to the account that shows that it cannot be the correct account of acts of naming. (shrink)